Offshore hydrocarbon production wells may be located in water thousands of feet deep. Some wells have inadequate internal pressure to cause the well fluid to flow to the sea floor and from the sea floor to a floating production vessel at the surface. Though not extensively used yet, various proposals exist to install booster pumps at the sea floor to boost the pressure of the well fluid.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,150,325 discloses installing a submersible rotary pump assembly in a caisson at the sea floor. The caisson has an inlet connected to a production unit, such as a subsea production tree, and an outlet leading to a second production unit, such as a manifold. The pump assembly is located within a capsule in the caisson in a manner that allows the capsule, with the pump therein, to be installed and retrieved from the caisson with a lift line. That solution has its merits, but does require constructing a caisson or using an abandoned well.
Flowline jumpers are commonly employed to connect various sea floor production units to each other. A flowline jumper is a pipe having connectors on its ends for connection to inlets and outlets of the production units. It is known to install a flowline jumper by lowering it from a vessel on a lift line and using a remote operated vehicle (ROV) to make up the connections. Flowline jumpers may have U-shaped expansion joints with the connectors on downward extending legs for stabbing into receptacles of the production units. Generally, a flowline jumper is simply a communication pipe and contains no additional features for enhancing production.